Revenge of the Sith: The Dark Path
by Random Phantasm
Summary: What if Anakin hadn't chopped off Mace Windu's hand? What if he'd come to his senses and acknowledged that the galaxy at large was more important that Padme or himself? How would the story have ended then?
1. Chapter 1

Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Alternate Events

Anakin entered the Supreme Chancellor's office as Palpatine scrambled into the corner of the shattered window. Master Windu's violet lightsaber blade was held at the old man's throat.

"Anakin!" the Chancellor cried. "I told you it would come to this. The Jedi are taking over."

"The oppression of the Sith will never return," Windu said. "You have lost."

"No, no, no, you will die!" Palpatine unleashed a torrent of lightning from his fingertips. Windu managed to hold back the attack with his lightsaber.

"He's a traitor," Palpatine shouted as his lightning rebounded into him.

"_He_ is the traitor," Windu replied.

"I have the power to save the one you love." Palpatine's face seemed to melt under the force of his reflected attack.

"Don't listen to him, Anakin," Master Windu shouted.

"I, I can't hold him any longer...I'm too weak."

Finally the Sith Lord's lightning subsided and he collapsed back onto the floor. Mace once again held him at saber-point.

"I am going to end this once and for all," Mace said.

"You can't," Anakin said. "He must stand trial."

"Ah, don't kill me please," Palpatine whined.

"He controls the Senate and the Courts," Windu replied, "he's too dangerous to be left alive."

"I'm too weak," the Chancellor cried.

"It's not the Jedi way," Anakin said.

Mace swung his lightsaber back to strike the Sith down.

"I need him!" Anakin shouted.

Master Windu attacked. Anakin activated his lightsaber and thrust it into the path of the other Jedi's weapon.

"Anakin, what are you doing?" Windu shouted. The Chancellor squirmed on the floor in fear.

"I need him alive," Anakin replied.

"He's a Sith Lord. How could he possibly –" Windu stopped. He could sense Anakin's troubled thoughts. He detected thoughts of...

"Senator Amidala?" Windu said. "Her baby...it's yours isn't it?"

Anakin said nothing. The Jedi disengaged blades and faced one another. Anakin remained in a readied stance.

"Anakin, whatever your reasons, you must let your personal feelings go. Palpatine has no interest in helping you. It's only your power he desires. If he survives, the Jedi will be exterminated and the galaxy will be plunged into endless oppression."

Anakin sighed and relaxed his stance.

"You're right," he said finally and turned toward Palpatine, "the Sith must be destroyed."

The look of terror and desperation on Palpatine's face vanished and was replaced by one of seething hate and anger.

"So be it, Jedi," he sneered.

Suddenly an assault of lightning even more powerful than the first coursed out of Palpatine's hands and into Master Windu's body. Anakin was knocked back by the force of the attack and could only watch as the lightning fully electrocuted Windu. The Jedi was hurled out the window by the Sith's attack.

In a flash, Sidious was on his feet, facing Anakin. He extended his hands and two lightsabers flew into his palms from outside the window. One Anakin recognized as Windu's weapon, the other Anakin could only guess was Sidious's own blade.

"If you will not be turned," Sidious said a he activated the violet and crimson blades, "you will be destroyed."


	2. Chapter 2

Sidious leaped toward Anakin, both blades thrust forward. The Jedi Knight parried the Sith Lord's attack and spun to deliver his own blow. Sidious caught Anakin's lightsaber between the crossed blades of his own and slid them forward. He swung his lightsabers out and around to strike at Anakin's midsection. The Jedi flipped up and over the Dark Lord just in time to evade. Another attack from Sidious nearly found its mark, but Anakin stopped the energy blades with his own. For a moment, the combatants stood, pressing their lightsabers against one another. Sidious snarled as his yellow eyes glowed from the hollow cavities in his disfigured face.

"Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side," the Dark Lord crowed. He and Anakin both leaped backward to face one another from opposite sides of the room.

Sidious sprang on the offensive again, whirling around, his lightsabers swirling in a dazzling blur of motion. Anakin concentrated, trying to time his own strike just right. He skipped his blade off of Sidious's red lightsaber and brought it down through the emitter of Master Windu's. Once again armed with only one weapon, the Sith spun about and thrust at Anakin's chest. A circular strike from Anakin's lightsaber knocked the attack harmlessly aside.

The Sith Lord unleashed another volley of lightning, but Anakin managed to catch it on the blade of his lightsaber. Maintaining the lighting with his left hand, Sidious struck at Anakin with the lightsaber in his right. The Jedi managed to maneuver such that the Sith's blade and lightning were both held at bay.

The Dark Lord let out a snarl and attacked again with his lightsaber. His anger had caused him to attack recklessly, and Anakin saw an opening. With a quick parry to Sidious's lightsaber, and a swift attack of his own, the Jedi Knight severed Sidious's arm, just above the elbow. The old Sith howled in pain and anger and leaped backwards behind his desk. He deactivated his lightsaber, tucked it away in his robes, and then pressed a switch right under the edge of the desk. An alarm began blaring as Sidious jumped over the desk and reactivated his lightsaber.

"You will pay the price for you lack of vision," the Dark Lord said.

Keeping low to the ground, Sidious raced past Anakin, deflecting the Jedi's attacks, and made for the antechamber outside the office. Anakin followed the fleeing Sith, entering the antechamber just in time to see a squad of clones rush in the door. Sidious looked back at Anakin and smiled.

"Execute Order 66," he said before sweeping past the clones and out into the corridor.

Anakin started to follow the Sith Lord, when the clones leveled their blaster rifles at him and opened fire.


	3. Chapter 3

Padme awoke to see Threepio standing over her.

"Mistress Padme," the droid said, "there seems to be someone at the door."

"Who is it?" Padme asked as she stood and pulled on her nightgown.

"I'm not entirely sure. He keeps asking for you, but I have been unable to recognize his face or voice."

Padme hurried to the door and activated the display panel. There, hunched outside her door, was a man she barely recognized as the Supreme Chancellor. Padme quickly opened the door to let her injured friend inside.

"Chancellor Palpatine," she said, helping him to his feet and inside, "what happened to you." She noticed that his left arm had been cut off by a lightsaber.

"The- the Jedi, they tried to kill me," he panted, out of breath. He seemed to be very frightened and exhausted.

"The Jedi?" Padme said. "That's impossible. Why-"

"Master Windu led a group to try and assassinate me. They want to take control of the Republic."

"No, they wouldn't!"

"...and Anaink Skywalker was with them."  
Padme's eyes went wide with disbelief. Not Anakin, she thought. There had to be some mistake.

"To think, Anakin, my most trusted friend in the Jedi Order would turn on me," the hideously scarred Chancellor said. "The council must have been using him as a spy."

Padme couldn't speak.

"If it hadn't been for the clones, I don't think I would have escaped."

**(-O-)**

Anakin deflected the first few shots back into one of the clones, then dove backward into Sidious's office and behind the desk. Blaster bolts were ripping the furniture apart around him. Huddled under the Chancellor's desk, the Jedi tried to think of a way to escape. He could sense the clones moving into the office, keeping him pinned down with suppressive fire. They'd probably throw a grenade behind the desk to- Anakin knew his escape plan.

He activated his lightsaber and crouched, leaning forward toward the busted out window. He focused on the clones, their blaster shots, their movement, their equipment. Anakin sprang from behind the desk, reflected a shot into one of the clones' grenades, and shot out of the window just as the collective blast from the clone's ammunition reduced the Chancellor's office to rubble.

The Jedi fell toward the ground, heading into sky-traffic. He slowed his fall with the Force, and grabbed onto the side of an air-taxi. The speeder's alien driver expressed dismay in a language Anakin didn't understand as the Jedi hoisted himself into the passenger compartment. He ignored the driver's protests as he stretched out with his feelings, looking for the Dark Lord's presence in the Force. He found the Sith.

"Take me to the Senate residential center, now," Anakin said.

The alien squawked an acknowledgment and flipped on his fare meter.


	4. Chapter 4

The air-taxi came to a halt at Padme's landing platform. Anakin dropped his cred-disc in the driver's lap and vaulted out of the vehicle. Forcing the transparasteel door open with the Force, he rushed into the living room where Padme sat beside the Sith Lord, trying to comfort what she believed to be a honest and terrified man.

"Padme," Anakin cried, "get away from him!"

But the Dark Lord had already sensed his presence. In a flash, Sidious hand risen, drawn and ignited his lightsaber, and held it at Padme's throat. Anakin stopped in his tracks, hand reaching for his own lightsaber.

"Don't make another move, Jedi," Sidious said.

"Let her go," Anakin replied.

"Your lightsaber, throw it."

Anakin removed his lightsaber from his belt and hurled it over the open balcony. Sidious lifted Padme with the Force and threw her backward across the room, then aimed his lightsaber directly at Anakin's chest. He drew slowly closer to the Jedi.

"Now, young Skywalker," the Dark Lord said, "you will die."

As the Sith Lord lunged forward, a blaster shot suddenly resounded through the apartment. Anakin glanced past the Sith to see Padme firing a hold-out blaster she kept hidden near the door. Sidious whirled, deflecting blaster shots, knocking one back at the blaster in Padme's hand. The weapon was knocked out of her hand and skidded across the floor. Sidious leaped back toward Padme, deactivating his lightsaber as he flew. He landed behind her, wrapped the stump of his left arm around her throat, and pressed his lightsaber emitter into the small of her back.

Anakin scanned the room for any weapon to use against Sidious. He caught Padme's eyes, then she looked toward the galley. She looked back at Anakin, and he nodded minutely. The Jedi focused on a set of knives in the galley, wrapping the Force around them, preparing to move them at incredible velocity.

The Jedi Knight thrust his hand forward, and the knives flew at Sidious's exposed side. At the same moment, Padme let herself drop, the Sith Lord's severed arm could not hold her. Sidious still activated his lightsaber, the blade bursting out through Padme's left shoulder, before turning to stop the knives. Sidious sliced cleanly through all but one of the blades. The last embedded itself in the Sith's left thigh.

Sidious roared in pain and sprinted for the balcony. He leaped over the railing, and disappeared into the sky traffic.


	5. Chapter 5

"Are you alright

"Are you alright?" Anakin asked his wife, rushing to her side. Her shoulder was badly wounded, but still attached. "Try and relax." Anakin placed his hand on Padme's forehead and let healing energies of the Force flow into her. She stopped shaking and opened her eyes. She nodded. "We have to go, now."

Anakin lifted Padme and carried her toward the landing grid.

"Threepio," he said, "let's go."

"Yes, Master Anakin," the droid said, obediently following.

Anakin placed Padme gently in the passenger seat of the airspeeder and climbed into the pilot's seat himself. Once Threepio was aboard, he roared off at top speed toward the Jedi Temple.

(-O-)

Darth Sidious landed roughly in an open-cockpit speeder. The occupants cried out briefly in alarm before the Sith Lord ended their lives with a flash of his lightsaber. He guided the craft to the ground and limped off into the crowd.

He approached the first HoloNet terminal he saw. It was being used by a surly-looking Twi-lek male. Sidious pushed him roughly aside.

"Hey, sleemo," the Twi-lek protested, "I've got ten more minutes on that thing!"

Sidious hurled the alien away with the Force and closed out of the adult entertainment program it had been viewing. He punched in his emergency override code so as to interrupt all HoloNet broadcasts in the vicinity with an emergency signal.

(-O-)

Anakin was startled to see the image of Sidious appear on the speeder's holoprojector. He had just finished explaining the events in the Dark Lord's chambers to Padme.

"Attention all clone units," the Sith's voice came echoing across the streets and skies of Coruscant, "By order of the Supreme Chancellor, execute Order 66."

The hologram vanished.

"We don't have much time," Padme gasped.

Anakin brought the speeder to an abrupt halt on the first platform he spotted. Several Jedi came out onto the dock, gasping when they saw the wounded Padme in Anakin's arms.

"Master Skywalker," one of them said, "that broadcast...What's this 'Order 66'?"

At that moment, they all heard a commotion from the street level. Below, hundreds of clone troopers were approaching the Temple.

"Mobilize the Temple's defenses," Anakin said. "Prepare to evacuate!"

(I'm back, baby! Random Phantasm)


End file.
